# Should gun owners be required to carry liability insurance? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 26, 2018, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609 "2018-02-26T16:35:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2018, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/121 "2018-03-02T02:24:07Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > This is “blaming the victim”. How is this blaming the victim? If a firearm owner doesn’t secure their firearm to prevent theft or doesn’t have insurance if there is theft, then that person is not a responsible firearm owner. Full stop. All the basics: assume a gun is always loaded, never point at something you are not prepared to shoot at, always be sure of your target and what is behind it, keep your finger off the trigger, etc. This is what I grew up with. In fact, none of the guy safety rules I’ve seen like this oneeven mention securing your firearm against theft or loss. Work on fixing the problem or a solution is going to be imposed. While I don’t question that you personally are a responsible firearm owner, keep your firearms safe from theft, etc. There are enough firearm owners that don’t meet the bar. IMHO y’all should shoulder your fair share of responsibility and at least have as much insurance as a backyard swimming pool owner. No free pass. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2018, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/122 "2018-03-02T02:32:50Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > How is this blaming the victim? If a firearm owner doesn’t secure their firearm to prevent theft or doesn’t have insurance if there is theft, then that person is not a responsible firearm owner. Full stop. > . You know, saying “full stop” doesnt make your point any better. :rolleyes: Look, currently there is no fucking insurance in the world that will pay out to a victim if the policy holder had that gun stolen. It simply does not exist. So, no, that doesnt make you a irresponsible gun owner. If you car is stolen from outside your house and used to kill someone, do you think you should pay out? Why not? Aren’t you a responsible car owner? And yes, a firearm holder should secure his firearm, but if they can break into bank vaults, they can open your gun safe. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2018, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/123 "2018-03-02T03:50:21Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > And yes, a firearm holder should secure his firearm, but if they can break into bank vaults, they can open your gun safe. 80-20 rule. Howsabout you propose how responsible gun owners can step up instead of poo pooing responsibility? I’m more than happy to work with responsible gun owners to get to an acceptable solution, but I’m really tired of “there’s nothing to do, and any increase in regulation will result in gun grabbing.” Like I wrote up thread, be part of the solution or don’t bitch when one is imposed. Thanks for playing. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2018, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/124 "2018-03-02T15:30:59Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > 80-20 rule. Howsabout you propose how responsible gun owners can step up instead of poo pooing responsibility? I’m more than happy to work with responsible gun owners to get to an acceptable solution, but I’m really tired of “there’s nothing to do, and any increase in regulation will result in gun grabbing.” Like I wrote up thread, be part of the solution or don’t bitch when one is imposed. Thanks for playing. Look, if you park your car, lock it, but it gets stolen and is used in a crime, do you think you should be held liable? ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2018, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/125 "2018-03-02T15:38:08Z")
I drop out for a day and fall way behind. I’m sorry for an even longer post than normal. > [@China\_Guy](#): > > [A tax](https://www.bing.com/search?q=%25+excise+tax+on+firearms&form=EDGNTT&qs=PF&cvid=cf020c904883426ea7a6583eef07ad82&refig=32124ddd71244ae9b9298050d9383629&cc=US&setlang=en-US&elv=AY3%21uAY7tbNNZGZ2yiGNjfMhhz4jdUEGHk13vvJE6PzP8JEFWllZqMjdt0Wx1JYYCu3gquX5Z89krw3jFidD1Rtixp8gvY8ZqPmHarb3lT9Q) of 10 percent of the sales price is imposed on pistols and revolvers, and a tax of 11 percent of the sales price is imposed on other portable weapons (e.g., rifles and shotguns) and ammunition. What makes you think this is the right amount? Using the number of NICS checks as a proxy for gun sales, we sell perhaps 25 million guns per year. If they each cost around $2000, a 10% sales tax would raise about $5 billion. That sounds like a lot, but given that lost wages alone from gun injuries is about $40 billion per year, a 10% tax would be way too little to solve the problem of uncompensated gun injuries that I’m trying to solve. > [@Corry\_El](#): > > Liability insurance specifically for having a gun is not IMO a serious policy proposal. It’s fine that a majority (on a left leaning forum like this) votes yes, but most of those people, if they are thinking straight and let’s assume they are, are really voting for ‘let’s think up and do do things which discourage people from having guns’, or thinking perhaps straight but more bloody mindedly ‘let’s have financial penalties on the situations and lifestyles of people we don’t like, the GOP did that with the state and local tax deduction, amiright?’ I’m taking it seriously. It’s not a penalty on gun owners. The two choices I’m offering are today’s situation, where we penalize people chosen essentially at random to bear the overwhelming majority of gun costs, or we choose to let gun owners bear the costs of guns. > [@Corry\_El](#): > > That is, thinking people realize that misuse of guns is an extremely skewed phenomenon. It’s a non-negligible problem, but it’s very concentrated in a relatively few people, people likely to stick the insurance co with claims very soon after getting their guns, if they follow the law and get the insurance at all which isn’t likely for those people. It’s unclear if you are addressing my proposal or some other proposal but my proposal is effectively impossible for gun owners to escape if the guns were ever sold lawfully. We sell guns through dealers and dealers would have to insure the guns. If the new buyer didn’t get new insurance, the dealers’ insurance is still on the hook. > [@Corry\_El](#): > > Nor is there any plausible process of judging risk by policy holder based on any criteria that would be politically acceptable. You are right. That’s an issue. There is no way to tell beforehand who can own a gun safely and who can’t. The current system basically imposes no costs for gun violence on gun owners under the implied assumption that everyone can and will own a gun safely or will make their victims whole after the fact. That conflicts with reality though where 14,000 people per year are killed and essentially get no recourse for their injuries. We basically say to hell with the victims. Our current system imposes gun costs on everyone rather than on people who haven’t chosen to own guns. Nothing you have said convinces me that imposing costs on everyone is fairer or better than imposing gun costs on gun owners alone. > [@Corry\_El](#): > > It’s just not a good type of policy, one where you really aim to do one thing (make people give up guns) but pretend you’re doing something else. And that’s even before you consider that the people willing to play along and buy the insurance wouldn’t be where much of the risk was anyway. It’s IOW a simply worse policy than just building the political support to restrict purchase and ownership of guns, straight up. Nor would it be any politically easier. I’m straightforward in my beliefs that we have too many guns because the effective price of guns is too low and they impose uncompensated externalities on others. I’m trying to find a market mechanism to find the right number of guns. My proposal is the best I can come up with. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Who do you think should be responsible for making the victims of gun violence whole, if not the gun owners? This is my question. You could argue the criminals should pay but if you do, you aren’t arguing in reality. In reality, who should pay those costs? > [@DrDeth](#): > > So, of “gun crimes” 80% are commited by those who wouldnt have insurance (or a registered weapon, or even likely a weapon bought legally) I’ve proposed a system that would insure guns as soon as they enter the stream of lawful commerce and keep them insured forever. It doesn’t require criminals to buy insurance. It works even though criminals won’t buy insurance. > [@DrDeth](#): > > [PolitiFact | MSNBC's Joe Scarborough: Tiny fraction of crimes committed with legal guns](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/oct/05/joe-scarborough/msnbcs-joe-scarborough-tiny-fraction-crimes-commit/) > > "On the other hand, if Scarborough had said that 3 percent of criminals who use guns get them legally, he would have come closer to the truth. There are still big issues with that, but he would have found some support in Cook’s work. You should have quoted the conclusion, > [@](#): > > Recent studies that look at prisoners who had a gun when they committed a crime found that between 3 and 11 percent purchased the weapon at a store or gun show. Those are not the only ways to get guns legally and they set a lower bound for legally-obtained guns, not an unbiased estimate of the true number. For example, you can also buy guns in private party transactions or borrow them from people who owned them legally. According to one study I found by following links in your article, “60% of [surveyed criminals’] guns were obtained by purchase or trade. Theft is unusual. Most transactions are with family and prior acquaintances.” What this speaks to are people who buy guns legally and then divert them into the criminal markets. My proposal makes that much more expensive because the gun will be bonded. As a gun owner, the way to get the bond refunded to you is to sell the gun to a subsequent buyer who will get it insured. If you sell or lend it to someone who doesn’t get it insured, your insurance is still on the gun and its damages are still covered. So, my proposal dramatically raises the costs of illegal gun trafficking and insures that even if it still goes on, people can be compensated when they are harmed by guns. > [@DrDeth](#): > > So your chance of getting a insurance payout is vanishingly small. If it’s vanishingly small, the cost of insurance is approximately zero, If you believe this, there is is no real reason to resist my proposal. I believe though that you are wrong, and the chance of recovery in a gun injury under my proposal is pretty high. It really just requires identifying the gun that harmed you. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Note that if you are hurt by a non-family memberin a crime, there already is a fund > [https://ovc.gov/about/victimsfund.html](https://ovc.gov/about/victimsfund.html) > > where the actual perpetrators of crimes pay in, and you can get funds out. I wasn’t aware of this. It seems like a good program but it is capped at paying $730 million per year in damages, or less than 3% of just the lost wages from gun violence in homicides. This also presumably covers all crime, not just gun crime. It’s a drop in the bucket of what’s needed. We should keep the program taking money from criminals for their harms. One potential use of the funds is to subsidize the insurance policies I am proposing since victims of gun violence will already be made whole through the insurance. It could also be used to partially compensate victims of uninsured guns. I recognize there will still be plenty of those. > [@DrDeth](#): > > So, if you were shot, you would have only a tiny chance of getting a insuraqnce pay out, why fine (becuse yes, it is a fine) the legal law abiding gun owners, why not collect from the perpetrators? You can call it a fine but it isn’t. Calling it a fine either shows that you fail to understand the proposal or you are willfully mischaractarizing it. > [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > Another way to get at this externality would be by imposing a tax or fee on gun ownership, which would fund a Victims Compensation Fund. Actuaries could base the fee on specific gun types and the lilelihood of that gun type injuring others. Then you would only have to look at the gun and not the gun owner. This is economically similar to my proposal but I like my proposal better. Gun owners are generally conservatives, and conservatives don’t have a lot of faith in the government to set prices. I don’t either. I believe that competitive insurance markets would be better at setting the price of gun damages than government actuaries. My proposal would effectively privatize your victims’ compensation fund and allow private insurers to run it. They would compete to do so at the lowest cost to gun owners. > [@DrDeth](#): > > As I pointed out above only about\*\* 3% \*\*of gun crimes are caused by a weapon legally purchased. You didn’t do so accurately. > [@DrDeth](#): > > As I also pointed out above there is already a excise tax on guns, and there is already a victims fund paid by the actual perpetrators. Excise taxes on guns are just revenue raisers. They aren’t intended to compensate victims of crimes for their injuries. If my proposal were adopted, I would support dropping excise taxes on guns altogether because then we would be overdeterring guns. I’m trying to find the right level of guns for society, which I believe is greater than zero. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Making a gun owner liable for a gun that has been taken away in a crime is ludicrous. This is an opinion. You haven’t explained why it’s more ludicrous than making a random gun victim liable. > [@DrDeth](#): > > You are insuring 299,999,800 guns for one pay out. You’re math is way wrong. If my proposal were perfectly implemented, there would be tens of thousands of payouts each year. It won’t be perfectly implemented but we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Actually few are lost, 96% are stolen. Wrong according to the sources of the data that you relied on for that statistic. > [@Corry\_El](#): > > I said people who are thinking straight about this, even if in favor, recognize it as a way to discourage gun ownership and/or punish gun owners (or ‘red staters’, etc.). I didn’t say you were thinking straight about it. 🙂 Discourage gun ownership, yes. Punish gun owners, no. It’s no more punishment for gun owners than making car owners pay for gas and repairs is punishing car owners. It’s intended to make gun owners pay the real price for their guns, rather than making innocent victims of crime pay those costs. > [@Corry\_El](#): > > The people who should be on the hook for making victims of gun violence whole is, obviously, the people who commit the gun violence crimes (or act illegally or grossly negligently in selling or giving a gun). It shouldn’t be people who neither committed the crimes nor facilitated them with their own illegal or grossly negligent actions. This is what we do today. I’m sensitive to this idea but it’s not working in practice. My idea is to make gun owners pay when criminals can’t be made to pay. I think this is a better system than making crime victims pay. > [@Corry\_El](#): > > Insurance would therefore be a rational solution only if the people creating claims by their illegal/negligent actions related to guns were mainly from the same pool of people it would be plausible to suppose would follow the mandate to buy the insurance. But that’s not plausible at all. The great bulk of gun crimes are committed with illegal weapons. The data Dr. Deth cited don’t support that the great bulk of crimes are committed with illegal weapons. It’s hard to conclude whether the weapons were legal or not. Also, my system doesn’t require criminals to buy insurance because the insurance follows the gun. It effectively covers illegal weapons that have been diverted from lawful commerce. > [@Corry\_El](#): > > Also, insurance works rationally when insurance companies can judge the risk of individual people they insure. Public policy prohibits this only when there are (judged to be) an overwhelming public interest not to charge riskier people more or too much more (as in health insurance\*). ‘Insurance’ is not in general supposed to just create a pool of people to pay some uniform rate to cover a cost which _some separate pool of people mainly cause_, which would manifestly be the case with this proposal. This is a policy argument that basically comes down to saying that it’s unfair to charge all gun owners for gun crimes when most of them won’t commit crimes. I am sincerely sensitive to that position but I don’t understand why you think it’s more fair to charge randomly-selected gun crime victims that money instead. I believe that gun owners have much more control over the prevalence of gun crimes and can do more to reduce those damages than non-gun owners. My proposal sincerely aims to give them the incentive to do so. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2018, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/126 "2018-03-02T18:10:09Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You are not liable if your car is stolen. Making a gun owner liable for a gun that has been taken away in a crime is ludicrous. For the nth time in this thread, I will repeat myself, and hope that maybe you actually read it. You as a car owner are not liable if your car is stolen, just as you as a gun owner would not be liable if your gun is stolen. However, your policy is not on you, it is on the car, so even if it is stolen, and is in an accident, it is still covered by the insurance policy that covers it, just as the policy would be on the gun, so even if it is stolen, and is used in such a way as to cause injury, death, or property damage, it is still covered by the insurance policy. If you keep repeating the line that “you are not liable if your car is stolen”, then it will be assumed that you write replies without actually bothering to read what you are replying to, as this is not the first, nor the second time I have, in this thread, pointed this out. > [@](#): > > Well if 2/3rs of murdersare commited by guns, ipso facto 1/3rd are commited by something other than guns. > > Becuase only about 1 gun in 30000 is used in a murder and of that number 98% are not registered. > > As opposed to abut one car in three gets into a accident and at least 2 of those three are by the registered owner. You are insuring 4 cars for one pay out. > > You are insuring 299,999,800 guns for one pay out. So, insurance will be cheap. > [@Corry\_El](#): > > I said people who are thinking straight about this, even if in favor, recognize it as a way to discourage gun ownership and/or punish gun owners (or ‘red staters’, etc.). I didn’t say you were thinking straight about it. 🙂 So, your telepathy only works on people that are thinking the way you think they should be thinking? > [@](#): > > The people who should be on the hook for making victims of gun violence whole is, obviously, the people who commit the gun violence crimes (or act illegally or grossly negligently in selling or giving a gun). It shouldn’t be people who neither committed the crimes nor facilitated them with their own illegal or grossly negligent actions. > > Insurance would therefore be a rational solution only if the people creating claims by their illegal/negligent actions related to guns were mainly from the same pool of people it would be plausible to suppose would follow the mandate to buy the insurance. But that’s not plausible at all. The great bulk of gun crimes are committed with illegal weapons. Most of which were at one point, bought legally. Then they were “stolen”. > [@](#): > > Also, insurance works rationally when insurance companies can judge the risk of individual people they insure. Public policy prohibits this only when there are (judged to be) an overwhelming public interest not to charge riskier people more or too much more (as in health insurance\*). ‘Insurance’ is not in general supposed to just create a pool of people to pay some uniform rate to cover a cost which _some separate pool of people mainly cause_, which would manifestly be the case with this proposal. > > So again it’s rational to vote yes if the actual justification is discouraging gun ownership or lashing out at gun owners. As an actual insurance system it’s a ridiculous proposal. And that’s very transparent to most people even if it truly is not to you. So the proposal wouldn’t even get points for honesty, which at least straight forward proposals to tighten gun control laws can (and do from me, though I don’t necessarily agree with them, depending which). I will continue to disagree that the reason for this is to punish gun owners, just as car insurance is not inflicted upon the public to punish car owners or discourage driving. I think that that is a transparent attempt to make it appear as though you are being persecuted for being asked to take responsibility for the damages caused by the product that they make sure is available to the public. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2018, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/127 "2018-03-02T18:19:03Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > For the nth time in this thread, I will repeat myself, and hope that maybe you actually read it. > > You as a car owner are not liable if your car is stolen, just as you as a gun owner would not be liable if your gun is stolen. > > However, your policy is not on you, it is on the car, so even if it is stolen, and is in an accident, it is still covered by the insurance policy that covers it, just as the policy would be on the gun, so even if it is stolen, and is used in such a way as to cause injury, death, or property damage, it is still covered by the insurance policy. > > If you keep repeating the line that “you are not liable if your car is stolen”, then it will be assumed that you write replies without actually bothering to read what you are replying to, as this is not the first, nor the second time I have, in this thread, pointed this out. > . Of course by “you” I mean the policy holder and the insurance company. Altho true, you can recover damages done by your car while stolen, neither you, nor the insurance company is liable for damages done by your car while it is stiolen. So, indeed, “you are not liable if your car is stolen”. You can point this out a zillion times, but it is still true. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2018, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/128 "2018-03-02T18:26:18Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > This is my question. You could argue the criminals should pay but if you do, you aren’t arguing in reality. In reality, who should pay those costs? > You should have quoted the conclusion, > > Those are not the only ways to get guns legally and they set a lower bound for legally-obtained guns, not an unbiased estimate of the true number. For example, you can also buy guns in private party transactions or borrow them from people who owned them legally. > > According to one study I found by following links in your article, “60% of [surveyed criminals’] guns were obtained by purchase or trade. Theft is unusual. Most transactions are with family and prior acquaintances.” > > You can call it a fine but it isn’t. Calling it a fine either shows that you fail to understand the proposal or you are willfully mischaractarizing it. > You didn’t do so accurately. > > Wrong according to the sources of the data that you relied on for that statistic. > The data Dr. Deth cited don’t support that the great bulk of crimes are committed with illegal weapons. It’s hard to conclude whether the weapons were legal or not. Also, my system doesn’t require criminals to buy insurance because the insurance follows the gun. It effectively covers illegal weapons that have been diverted from lawful commerce. Who pays in a auto accident (except in no-fault states)-\* those who caused the accident. \* Yes, estimates vary and so it’s 3-11%, which makes it a average of 7%, still it’s a tiny % of guns used in crimes that are purchased legally from a gun store. Yes, some guns used in crimes were purchased not stolen. But if they were bought froma fence, they are not purchased legaly from a gun store. My data does show that. Quibbling that it could be as high as 11% doesnt make the bacis fatc change- most guns used in crimes are not purchased legally at a gun store. No insurance company would sell insurance that would make them pay out if a stolen gun was used in a murder spree. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2018, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/129 "2018-03-02T21:10:09Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, estimates vary and so it’s 3-11%, which makes it a average of 7%, still it’s a tiny % of guns used in crimes that are purchased legally from a gun store. > > Yes, some guns used in crimes were purchased not stolen. But if they were bought froma fence, they are not purchased legaly from a gun store. > > My data does show that. Quibbling that it could be as high as 11% doesnt make the bacis fatc change- most guns used in crimes are not purchased legally at a gun store. But guns can be purchased legally from sources other than a gun store and they can be borrowed without being purchased at all, which is why the statistic you keep repeating isn’t even relevant to your point that most guns are illegally obtained. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2018, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/130 "2018-03-02T21:23:26Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I will continue to disagree that the reason for this is to punish gun owners, just as car insurance is not inflicted upon the public to punish car owners or discourage driving. I think that that is a transparent attempt to make it appear as though you are being persecuted for being asked to take responsibility for the damages caused by the product that they make sure is available to the public. Well spoken. Firearm owners need to be responsible, and should not get a free pass to self-determine what “responsible” means. Currently, firearm owners are “free riders” and thus far I’m not seeing any solutions coming from firearm owners other than “not my fault/not my responsibility.” Again, would really appreciate firearm owners actually proposing solutions instead of sucking at the government teat. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/131 "2018-03-03T02:32:30Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > But guns can be purchased legally from sources other than a gun store and they can be borrowed without being purchased at all, which is why the statistic you keep repeating isn’t even relevant to your point that most guns are illegally obtained. Yes, as it has been cited. Do you have a cite they arent? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/132 "2018-03-03T02:34:32Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Well spoken. > > Firearm owners need to be responsible, and should not get a free pass to self-determine what “responsible” means. Currently, firearm owners are “free riders” and thus far I’m not seeing any solutions coming from firearm owners other than “not my fault/not my responsibility.” Again, would really appreciate firearm owners actually proposing solutions instead of sucking at the government teat. Someone steals your car and crashes it into a busload of orphans. Are you responsible? Or is it "“not my fault/not my responsibility.” Look, we all pay the price for crime. Gun owners at least pay a little bit extra towards it. Make criminals responsible. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/133 "2018-03-03T16:22:59Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Of course by “you” I mean the policy holder and the insurance company. Altho true, you can recover damages done by your car while stolen, neither you, nor the insurance company is liable for damages done by your car while it is stiolen. > > So, indeed, “you are not liable if your car is stolen”. You can point this out a zillion times, but it is still true. Huh, well, I do need to apologize, as I was operating under an incorrect assumption, and I need to ask my insurance agent to explain himself. I was under the impression that the policy was still liable in the event the car was stolen, as when I wanted to take the policy off my car until I had money to get it fixed, he told me that I should keep a minimal policy, specifically, “In case someone takes a joyride in it and has an accident.” I looked it up, to prove myself right on this, and found that I was incorrect, and that, unless you are at fault for making your car easy to steal, your insurance is not liable, and in many states, that’s not the case either. It definitely is the case that if you give permission for your car to be used, then your policy _is_ liable (though the driver is liable for anything not covered by insurance, not you). As an unknown, but certainly far from zero number of the “stolen” guns are actually sold by the owner into the blackmarket, quite a number of those “stolen” guns actually should still be liable under the original policy. Just as if you lend your car to a friend, and when they are in an accident with it, you claim that they took it without your permission, your policy would not be held liable, but it should be. (Interestingly, and off topic, that creates a perverse incentive in and of itself. If you realize that the car that hit you was stolen, then it makes more sense to claim it was your fault, so your insurance covers your injuries, and your damages if you have full coverage.) So, mea culpa on that. Doesn’t change the fact that I do think that the insurance policy for a gun should be on the gun, or that there should be an umbrella policy that covers all guns to compensate victims of gun violence. It would not be that much, probably less than the current taxes, in fact. As those taxes just go into the general fund, I would be down for directing them entirely towards victim compensation, and if there is money left over, use the rest for education to reduce the number of gun victims in the first place. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Someone steals your car and crashes it into a busload of orphans. Are you responsible? > > Or is it "“not my fault/not my responsibility.” As you pointed out before, if you are struck by a car, there is a very high chance that the car had proper insurance. If you are injured by a gun, there is a very small chance that the shooter has the means to cover your injury. And you are also looking at stats for murder, rather than stats for overall shootings and injuries. I am, in many ways, more concerned about injuries than death, as funerals are far cheaper than medical bills, and in either case, there is likely to be a similar loss of wages. > [@](#): > > Look, we all pay the price for crime. Gun owners at least pay a little bit extra towards it. In what way? On my way home last night, I had NPR on, and they were talking about shootings in Chicago. They said that it cost the city of chicago over 2 billion dollars a year in medical costs and lost wages. That’s just one city. Gun owners are taking advantage of being free riders, and getting non-gun owners to subsidize that. > [@](#): > > Make criminals responsible. We send them to jail, we take what they have, but that doesn’t make the victim whole. That is what I am concerned about, not punishment. What can you do to a criminal to get more out of them in order to cover the medical bills and lost wages from disability? Now, if we had a universal healthcare system, then at least we wouldn’t be concerned about medical bills for the victims, and if we had a reasonable safety net, then the victim may not suffer from the lost wages either. If we had these things, we could also more easily calculate the fiscal cost that guns have on society, as now taxpayers are completely on the hook for assisting the victims of gun violence, and it would make much more sense to simply put a tax on gun and ammo sales to cover the costs that having guns freely available in our society incurs. I’d be completely down for that. I am not wedded to any particular idea or ideology, I don’t want to make guns unaffordable, I just don’t want the victims of gun violence to be uncompensated and left to bankruptcy and destitution. Sure, there are other criminal acts and acts of violence that need to be addressed as well, but guns are the biggest, so we need to start somewhere. If knives become a bigger problem, then we can add a tax on knives to compensate victims of knife violence. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/134 "2018-03-04T00:51:22Z")
To answer **Czarcasm** I voted other, I’m not opposed to the idea as you put in in your OP. The devil is in the details I guess, far as whether or not I would support a particular bit of legislation requiring it. For **Tired and Cranky** and **k9befriender** , I’ve had a bit of a time keeping you two separate in my head as I’ve thought about this convo over the past few days off and on while working. Anyway, I wanted to thank you both for your most recent posts that clarify what you are trying to say. To me you both were coming across like brick walls that everyone was banging against fruitlessly, but that’s no longer the case. While I don’t think what you two are proposing would work at the national level, I do think it might have a pretty good chance at the state level, and perhaps that’s the best place for it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/135 "2018-03-04T01:20:41Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Someone steals your car and crashes it into a busload of orphans. Are you responsible? > > Or is it "“not my fault/not my responsibility.” > > Look, we all pay the price for crime. Gun owners at least pay a little bit extra towards it. > > Make criminals responsible. Do you have a habit of leaving your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition? Has your car been stolen more than once? When your car gets stolen, do you report it right away? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/136 "2018-03-04T02:49:35Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Do you have a habit of leaving your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition? Has your car been stolen more than once? When your car gets stolen, do you report it right away? No, and no, and yes. But what has that to do with the issue? You mean your gonna make a special type of insurance, one never issued before, one that make the owner liable and pays out if his gun is stolen but he negligently secured it? If you car is stolen, and used to kill someone, you are not liable even if you left your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition. So, the analogy made by many is “cars are insured, why not guns?” Which _sounds_ logical. BUT Cars dont need to be insured unless they are driven on public roads. BUT Car insurance does not cover deliberate acts by the owner. BUT Car insurance does not pay out to a victim if the car is stolen and used in a crime. What does Car insurance pay out/cover? _Accidental_ injuries or death. And you know what? Your homeowner insurance likely covers\* accidental\* injuries or death caused by your firearm. So yeah, it all sounds so logical, except what you want from gun insurance is nothing at all like car insurance, and is a mythical type of insurance that doesnt exist. So, what it really is- you want gun owners to have to pay money in hope it will stop people from owning guns. The “gun owner insurance” proposal falls totally apart once you know a little bit about insurance and is revealed to be just yet another sneaky underhanded gun control measure. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/137 "2018-03-04T06:26:59Z")
If you want to keep changing the topic, please start a different thread on car insurance, and/or how that analogy does or does not apply to firearms. Again, car insurance is an \*analogy \*and not the discussion we are having about firearm owners being free riders that are unwilling to take any responsibility for deadly weapons in their possession. Responsible firearm owners self define, and given the number of accidents, suicides, stolen guns, transferred guns without background checks, etc, it is a threat to public safety and shouldn’t be left to individual choice. Frankly, as I have stated before in this an other threads, I don’t think the government should define what is safe storage. By the same token, if there is an accident/suicide/theft, then the firearm owner should be held responsible until that registered firearm is legally transferred or reported stolen. (And for the sake of argument can we agree not to bring up outlier scenarios like the world’s greatest safe cracker gets in your home, breaks the biometric lock, and steals the firearm, then the owner will not be held responsible.). Do you agree or disagree that a firearm owner should be responsible for their firearms? Yes or no? Second, hypothetical situation where a child goes to a home, finds a firearm, and accidently and tragically wounds and cripples someone for life, should the owner bear any responsibility? What should that responsibility look like? How would you propose ensuring that firearm owner can make restitution in such a case? ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/138 "2018-03-04T14:11:52Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > If you want to keep changing the topic, please start a different thread on car insurance, and/or how that analogy does or does not apply to firearms. Again, car insurance is an \*analogy \*and not the discussion we are having about firearm owners being free riders that are unwilling to take any responsibility for deadly weapons in their possession. > > Responsible firearm owners self define, and given the number of accidents, suicides, stolen guns, transferred guns without background checks, etc, it is a threat to public safety and shouldn’t be left to individual choice. Frankly, as I have stated before in this an other threads, I don’t think the government should define what is safe storage. By the same token, if there is an accident/suicide/theft, then the firearm owner should be held responsible until that registered firearm is legally transferred or reported stolen. (And for the sake of argument can we agree not to bring up outlier scenarios like the world’s greatest safe cracker gets in your home, breaks the biometric lock, and steals the firearm, then the owner will not be held responsible.). > > Do you agree or disagree that a firearm owner should be responsible for their firearms? Yes or no? > > Second, hypothetical situation where a child goes to a home, finds a firearm, and accidently and tragically wounds and cripples someone for life, should the owner bear any responsibility? What should that responsibility look like? How would you propose ensuring that firearm owner can make restitution in such a case? I meant to ask about the term I colored red earlier, I _think_ I might know what you mean by this, but I’d like to be certain. What do you mean by gun owners being free riders {on the system}? ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/139 "2018-03-04T15:22:31Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, as it has been cited. Do you have a cite they arent? I used your source, which says that 60% of criminals’ guns are obtained by purchase or trade (i.e., are not stolen) and that more are obtained by borrowing. “Theft is rare” according to the source of your wrongly-cited statistic. I don’t know the correct number but neither apparently do you. The difference is that I don’t pretend to know. > [@guestchaz](#): > > While I don’t think what you two are proposing would work at the national level, I do think it might have a pretty good chance at the state level, and perhaps that’s the best place for it. I think it would work best nationally although it’s probably politically impossible to adopt nationally. If one state were to adopt this, it would drive up the effective price of guns in that state but criminal markets would just obtain guns from cheaper out of state sources, so the benefits would be muted. State-by-state adoption is still better than nothing. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609/140 "2018-03-04T17:00:01Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > If you want to keep changing the topic, please start a different thread on car insurance, and/or how that analogy does or does not apply to firearms. Again, car insurance is an \*analogy \*and not the discussion we are having about firearm owners being free riders that are unwilling to take any responsibility for deadly weapons in their possession. > > Second, hypothetical situation where a child goes to a home, finds a firearm, and accidently and tragically wounds and cripples someone for life, should the owner bear any responsibility? What should that responsibility look like? How would you propose ensuring that firearm owner can make restitution in such a case? So, you admit the car insurance analogy fails? Are you now going to admit that there is no such thing as insurance that will pay out if the gun is stolen and used in a crime? Or if used in a deliberate act by the owner? Yes, that is a accidental shooting and is covered by normal homeowners insurance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-gun-owners-be-required-to-carry-liability-insurance/809609.md?page=8)